Individuals, such as children, may become locked within a trunk of a vehicle. It may be desirable to detect the presence of such an individual and to automatically open or "release" the trunk, and/or to provide a warning signal to the user/operator of the vehicle which informs the user/operator of the detected presence of such an individual, in order to allow the user/operator to open the trunk. It may also be desirable to provide a mechanism and/or assembly, within the trunk, which allows a trapped individual to open the trunk.
Prior vehicle trunk detection and release systems addressed these needs by placing pressure sensors and/or heat sensors within the trunk in an attempt to sense or detect the presence of a trapped individual within the trunk. Particularly, the pressure sensors were typically placed on and/or within the "floor" of the trunk and detected the body weight of the trapped individual. Once the body weight of the individual was detected, the pressure sensors generated a warning signal to the user/operator of the vehicle notifying the user/operator of the detected presence of the trapped individual. The heat sensors were deployed throughout the trunk and detected the body heat of the trapped individual. The heat sensors similarly generated a warning signal upon detecting such body heat. While these sensors did indeed detect the presence of a trapped individual, they oftentimes provided a false warning or output signal due to the presence of relatively heavy objects (e.g. many grocery packages) within the trunk and/or due to the presence of hot food or other heated objects within the trunk and/or heat which was generated within the trunk during a hot summer day.